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LOS ANGELES — Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced legislation today to preserve the spectacular heritage of the California desert by creating two new National Monuments and expanding Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve. The bill would establish new wilderness areas in Death Valley National Park and on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Forest Service. Finally, the legislation would also establish a permitting process for all renewable energy projects on BLM land.

OLYMPIA - Congress and the Obama administration are responding with on-the-ground results in response to appeals by a coalition of conservation groups and the state Departments of Ecology and Fish & Wildlife.

Federal action is now occurring to repair and reclaim crumbling national forest roads in Washington state that have been harming endangered salmon and clean water.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK – David Moulton, The Wilderness Society’s climate change policy director, issued the following statement on today’s address by President Obama at the UNFCC conference in Copenhagen, Denmark:

SAN DIEGO – Local residents cheered the introduction of U.S. Representative Darrell Issa’s (R-Vista) legislation to protect as wilderness more than 21,000 acres of Beauty Mountain and Agua Tibia in north San Diego County.

ANCHORAGE - Experts are calling the recent oil spill on Alaska’s North Slope one of the worst ever. An estimated 46,000 gallons of oil spilled when a pipeline on a BP-operated line split. Despite oil and gas industry claims to the contrary, spills occur frequently in Alaska and often are undetected or ignored.

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ANCHORAGE - The federal government’s Minerals Management Service put its rubber stamp on a plan today that allows Shell Oil to drill in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea as early as next summer. MMS approved Shell’s exploratory drilling plan without a full analysis of its potentially significant effects on wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence, already threatened by climate change, and despite a lack of fundamental scientific information about the region.

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DENVER – The Wilderness Society is calling on the U.S. Forest Service to carefully spend an additional $40 million that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack committed today “to address public safety concerns and forest health needs arising from the millions of acres of dead and dying trees from bark beetle infestations in the West.” He made the announcement with Colorado Governor Bill Ritter.